You can tell an experienced witcher by the way he examines a notice board. To the novice eye, these weathered planks contain nothing but clumsily-scrawled messages touching on matters thoroughly mundane: trifling announcements, offers of sale or purchase, lewd rhymes, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. A witcher with years under his belt, however, will search the dross carefully, knowing that it often hides a jewel – a witcher contract, for example, or, as in this particular case, information about a mysterious "runewright" from a far-off land...

A small fortune was all it took for the Ofieri to get started. Once he received it, he got down to work and from then on Geralt could buy simple runes and glyphs from him and have him place basic words in his swords and armor.